Morrison’un ‘Beloved’ Adlı Eserinde Kölelik ve Annelik Çıkmazı

Yıl 2013, Cilt: 3 Sayı: 1, 145 - 154, 30.06.2013

M. Önder Göncüoğlu

Öz

In the preface of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1963, 18), Sartre describes how oppressed peoples, who have no other chance, vent their frustration and anger on each other: “If this suppressed fury fails to find an outlet, it turns in a vacuum and devastates the oppressed creatures themselves”. What is implied here may be likened to a snake struggling to swallow its own tail out of despair. Toni Morrison’s well-known work Beloved (1987) in this respect represents such an anger against the oppressor concluding in her infanticide. In fact, the act of murder, in itself, is evil. However, it shouldn’t be ignored that in her situation tragedy stems from her “thick” love for her children. It is a love strong enough to kill her child but within a mood of mercy, than to watch her live a life of abuse and slavery. Therefore, in Sethe’s case her hatred against the oppressor turns into a paradox when she kills her most beloved one. There is no doubt that taking a human life is murder, but how the concept of murder is to be understood within this context is the primary goal of this article

Anahtar Kelimeler

Slavery, infanticide, memory, oppression, paradoxical-love

Kaynakça

• Bakerman, J. (Summer 1978). “The Seams Can’t Show: An Interview with Toni Morrison”. Black American Literature Forum, 12, 56-60.
• Barker, D. (2000). “Indentured Servitude in Colonial America”. (24.01.2004). Kaynak: http://www. geocities.com/nai_cilh/servitude.html
• Bonnie, A. (2001). “The Pain of Being Black: An Interview with Toni Morrison”. (16.05.2003). Kaynak: http://www.geocities.com/beingblack.html
• Conner, M. C. (2000). The Aestheticsof Toni Morrison: Speaking the Unspeakable. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
• Fanon, F. (1963). The Wretched of the Earth. Grove. New York: Grove Press.
• Holloway, K. F. C. (1990). “Beloved: A Spiritual”. Callaloo, 13, 516-25.
• Jesser, N. (2006). “Violence, home, and community in Toni Morrison's Beloved”. (9.11.2008). Kaynak: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_2_33/ai_55577123/pg_3/?tag=content;col1
• Library of Congress also Harper’s Weekly. (1886, June 2). Kaynak: http://africanhistory.about.com/od slaveryimages/ig/SlaveryImagesGallery/SlaveBarkWildfire.html
• Melady, P. T. (1962). The White Man’s Future in Black Africa. New York: Macfadden-Bartell Corporation.
• Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved. New York: Penguin Books. Otten, T. (1989). The Crime of Innocence in the Fiction of Toni Morrison. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Rodney, W. (1982). How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington DC: Howard University Press.